The following email was sent to the Troops Out Movement by a member after receiving an advertisement for a meeting to defend ‘refugees from the human rights crisis in Zimbabwe’, ie, supporters of the imperialist-funded MDC who may be repatriated to Zimbabwe.

Dear Troops Out

I am shocked to find you circulating this rubbish.

Zimbabwe is the target of the British government's economic sanctions and hysterical propaganda because it is fighting to be independent of imperialism - and that's its whole crime.

Zimbabwe said no to the IMF and a SAP.

Zimbabwe has redistributed land to the poor masses of landless peasants (something Britain was supposed to help pay for under the independence agreements, but since when did Britain stick to its agreements with liberation movements?)

Zimbabwe sent troops to help the Congolese people stave off attack from Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda. All these countries have been paid by the US and Britain to invade the Congo, killing five million Congolese in the process, so that British and US companies can plunder diamonds and cobalt from the east of the country (cobalt is used in chips for mobile phones and PCs).

The MDC is a puppet of the imperialist governments, who have simply repackaged the White Farmers Union with a few black faces and a new name.

The British government has been forced to reconsider its tactics against Zimbabwe now that the land reform has become a fact, but putting Tony Benn on a platform to denounce 'human rights abuses' doesn't make this a great left-wing cause - it just makes Tony Benn an apologist for imperialism. The only abuse of human right that British imperialism is really concerned about is the right of white farmers and British imperialists to superexploit the people of Zimbabwe and 'repatriate' the country's wealth to Britain or the US.

As an anti-imperialist group supporting the right of the Irish to self determination, perhaps you should consider extending this right to those colonised in Africa too?